by Diane Wilson
Follow Diane’s day-by-day account of the latest Global Hunger Strike against Formosa Plastics. You can join her by signing up here.
Well, this post may be a little woo-woo to some folks, but to others it’s gonna be, “Yeah!” So here goes. On most mornings I sit on my porch where a huge oak tree has Spanish moss hanging from every branch. She’s an old tree. 150 years at least. I spend most of my life outdoors, so I get a feeling for nature, for trees, water, grass and rabbit and cats. Oh yeah, I love cats. That feeling I get is something of a fine fine communication. Almost a humming in your head. You almost think it’s yourself–but it could be the trees communicating! Anyhow, this is my fourth day without food and only water and this morning when I sat on the porch, that tree was whispering. Couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I knew that tree was offering me alliance. She knew what I was doing.
I’ve had that feeling before. When I was five, me and my sisters and my mother would walk to the bay when my dad came in from shrimping. That’s what you do in a fishing village. The heart of the community is the bay and the fish houses and the boats and the fishermen. When I would go to the bay, there was this old woman down there who immediately caught my eye, primarily because she felt like my grandmother, and she liked me. I would go to the bay just to see that old woman. She would never say anything, but she didn’t need to. I would just cozy up to her and we’d watch the boats and the strange shadows in the water.
When I got older, about 10 or so, I realized that old woman that I had hung around was
actually The Water. The bay was so real to me that she personified in the flesh. I do not see
that old woman anymore, but I know she is there. I will never forget her and probably one of
the reasons I fight so hard for the bay. Is because she is my grandmother. And attacking my
grandmother will not stand!